


Always... Never

by cadkitten



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Acceptance, Angst, Darkness, Fluff, Frottage, M/M, Multi, Pining, Pseudo-Incest, Tenderness, Underage Sex, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 16:28:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4968070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>This</i>... this was why he left. Bruce pulled out the stoppers on his emotions, filled him with everything he longed for and it only came out as anger now. Once upon a time, in a world where he'd held onto <i>hope</i>, it hadn't been like this. His affection, his- <i>no</i>... had helped him become better, stronger, more like a bat than a bird. But now, like this... he was weak. Open, barren... <i>a disgrace</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always... Never

**Author's Note:**

> I really can't help myself anymore. At all. It's a sickness...  
> Beta Readers: sakura_ame  
> Song[s]: "Always" by Saliva & "Through the Ghost" by Shinedown

_It's a sickness, tearing at me, ripping at my insides. Everything I could have done... everything I haven't. Nothing in this ruin of a world could have prepared me for what this is, what it could be. And not a single thing could have stopped me from walking out your door. You won't see it, you never could. You won't see how much it kills me, it's just not how you are. But the solitude is murdering me, one day at a time. There's blood on my hands and all I can hear are the words of failure upon your lips. All I can see is the pain written all over your face that has nothing to do with me... and everything to do with you. It's your dream that you're forcing me to live and while I can't deny how I feel, I can't breathe under the press of your shadow. You've taught me darkness and into darkness I will go. But even as I walk out this door, I can't help but look back, just once more. **Always... always... always...** And some things will never change._

Crouched low on the rooftop, Dick waited, watching, as he barely breathed. The reek of trash from the street below met his nostrils and he tried hard not to react to it at all. The days in Gotham had grown muggy, enough of a rough patch to turn garbage sour before pickup. And the nights... the nights had been even more rainy than usual. Sometimes he could have sworn Gotham had a tendency to adopt all of the shitty weather while Metropolis got the better end of the deal there... sunny days and cloudless skies. Things he nearly forgot during entire stretches of the year. Things some part of him yearned for, no matter how much he knew he'd never really get... not here and not in Blüdhaven.

He shifted minutely, just enough to peer over the edge of the building, to see just a bit clearer. Just enough to view the fight going on down below. Batman and Robin were kicking ass and taking names, the pair of them moving in a fluid grace that Dick remembered like it was yesterday. His eyes tracked the movements, watching how Robin moved, how he took up on his training from both Bruce and Dick to make his own sort of dance of the whole thing. A fond smile slid across his lips. _Brother._ Because that's how he'd come to think of him lately. A family line... a whole string of Robins to work under the Bat. _A whole string of tragedy._ Pushing the thought aside, he let his eyes stray to Batman.

This was what always brought him out here, if he was being truthful. Why he'd leave Blüdhaven and make his way through Gotham after his own rounds were well done and over with. _Why he'd planned his rounds differently._ He watched as Robin struck out with his staff, the jerkoff getting cracked in the back of his shoulders and stumbling toward Batman. A solid backwards fist into the nose, a crunch of bone, and one more strike from Robin, a few ribs going out for sure with the angle of the blow and the guy crumpled. Dick couldn't see it from his perch, but he knew there would be a disapproving look on Bruce's face. He'd have his jaw set and his lips drawn into a thin line. _Too much violence, Robin, dial it back._ He could hear the voice that wasn't spoken, clear as day; his own past dangling in front of him in perfect clarity for a few seconds.

Wetting his lips, he drew back from the edge and pressed himself against the chimney behind him, sliding into the shadows of Gotham. The sweep of feet over concrete and the sound of Robin's feet on the dumpster lid, tipping him off that they were coming. Sometimes he could have sworn the kid knew... that he knew it was Dick hiding away in the shadows at times like these... and that he warned him on purpose. Because when he wasn't dumb enough to stay around, he never heard Robin make a sound when he scaled a building. He was, perhaps, better than Dick himself.

Dick slid around the chimney and darted across the building, smoothly making the leap to the next and rushing to the side, swinging down onto the fire escape without making a sound. To keep running would be a mistake and he knew that intimately. He knew it like he knew how to draw air into his lungs. He pressed back into the shadows and turned his head away from the other rooftop, though he wanted to look. His lenses would give him away and he knew it. This way he was all dark hair and blue and black clothing. _A figment of the night._ Bruce had once told him to earn the shadows. That he'd made him bright so that he wouldn't use the night as a crutch. Let the enemy see him and fight them head-on. And it had helped make Dick everything he was now. _Better. Stronger._ Something he couldn't have ever hoped to have been if he'd not taken that path.

Batman's low growl of a voice slid across the rooftops to him, though he couldn't hear the conversation. A shiver worked its way down his spine and he forced himself to barely breathe. Closing his eyes, he willed himself to block it out... to not let his mind float to whatever dark corner it was that it always wanted to slip into. The one he didn't let it go anywhere near. Not anymore.

He heard nothing for a minute and then the clang of staff upon fence. His head jerked around and he stared at the street below. Batman was already sweeping away toward where they'd left the Batmobile and the flashing of police lights were coming from the distance to pick up the filth they'd left behind. But Robin... Robin stood nearly directly below him, just standing there, busy doing something Dick couldn't quite see. A few more seconds and then something white fluttered to the ground at Robin's feet and he was off like a shot, silent as ever.

Dick gave it a good twenty count before grabbing the bar in front of himself, swinging down and leaping from one balcony to another with barely a sound. One bar creaked, an inevitability, and then he was on the ground, scooping up the white thing - a paper - without a second thought. Two blocks and record time and he swung his leg over his bike, pausing to stuff the paper safely into the top of one of his gloves. And then he was gone, a streak of blue and black into the night, the whisper of his engine left in his wake.

Twenty minutes found him back in Blüdhaven, his nest - it was really more of a cave, but Robins... birds... they had nests, not caves, so he refused to think of it as anything else - door sliding open as he approached, letting him glide his bike inside. The door sealed behind him, the gentle voice of his security system - indistinct of gender or identity - telling him that all was well. He kicked off the engine and slid from the bike. Three stairs and he stopped next to the wall unit he kept his suit in. First the mask and then one glove... and then the paper. He tossed the other glove in with some amount of carelessness he normally didn't display and carefully opened the scrap of paper. _Notebook paper._ Tim's distinct handwriting scratched its way across the front, words that would have been meaningless to anyone else.

**The darkness is your friend now. But it is you I see when I see no one at all. I know... but I don't think _he_ knows. Dinner's at nine.**

Dick stared down at the paper, his heart pounding and blood rushing in his ears. This wasn't how he'd meant it to be. This wasn't... _it wasn't_. He sighed, placing the paper aside and stripping off the rest of his costume and locating his phone. He had about twenty five minutes before he'd be late. It wasn't a choice, there was no decision to be made. He'd been invited and he'd go, regardless of what it did or didn't reveal. He'd play it casual and stroll in like he'd never left. _But could he?_ He pulled on his clothing with fingers that felt numb... numb from emotion, but not for any of the usual reasons. 

He slipped away through the connecting tunnel and came up on the other side of the street, into the building beside his own apartment. He exited the back doors and crossed the alleyway. Using the shadows, he made his way to the doorway and then stepped out into the street, making his way down the block to where his car was parked in a community lot. 

Once behind the wheel, he let himself slide the car gently past the speed limit. He hit Gotham city limits and gunned it, knowing the cops here had bigger fish to fry than a little navy blue sports car going twenty over; a car they had no hope of ever catching even if they did take any interest in it. Bruce and Dick had designed it years ago, though he wondered if Bruce even still remembered those nights when he'd just been a boy. Nights spent laboring over the perfect traction, the perfect fuel... rebuilding the engine block over and over. And then, finally, scrapping the whole thing and starting over for conservation _and_ speed. Conservation of energy, begetting energy conservation. It was beautiful. A singular, self-sufficient and thriving entity. And Dick had made it his goal to bring it into existence once he'd left Wayne Manor. 

Even as he hit the gravel of the main driveway and eased off the speed, he wondered... would Bruce see it for what it was? Or would he write it off as Dick's propensity for fast little things. _Wasteful._ He pulled the car near the doors and parked it, feeling a certain thrill in not doing what he damn well knew he should... and not parking it. And he'd not let anyone have the keys, thus negating Alfred ending up parking it when Bruce inevitably sent him off on the task of it. _Let Bruce try._

Sliding out of the car, he stretched, his back aching in places he wasn't sure he wanted to remember how he'd hurt. It gave a half-hearted pop as he padded up the steps. He didn't even get to knock before the door was opened, Tim on the other side of it. Their eyes met and the smallest hint of a smile graced Tim's lips. Warmth filled Dick's chest as he stepped inside, listening to the door close and lock behind him. Not another sound, not even the gentle tap of shoes on the floor, and Tim was back in front of him. Once again, they simply regarded one another, eyes locked and barely breathing. Finally, Tim turned away, a million unspoken words ringing loudly in Dick's head. His steps were normal against the floor now, _intentionally_ usual. The kid had a way, that was for damn sure. Dick followed him, his hands stuffed in his pockets as he trailed along like a lost puppy. And maybe... _maybe_ he was.

The dining room smelled like lasagna and garlic bread. Though, as usual, the rest of the house did not. That had never been Bruce's doing, but Alfred's own, and Dick had always regarded it to mean exactly what it did. Their butler was smarter than anyone gave him credit for. Or anyone but Dick, anyway.

He took his old usual seat and then stood halfway back up, looking up at Tim, a question in his eyes. But Tim settled himself in the chair across from him, placing his elbows on the table and steepling his hands, regarding Dick across the top of them, still deadly silent. Sitting back into the seat, Dick moved his chair in and quietly retrieved his napkin, putting it in his lap and his hands over it.

This time when his and Tim's eyes met, there was something else brewing in the depths of those miniature pieces of the dark. He couldn't quite convince himself that it wasn't wholly disturbing... and yet he couldn't look away. The look was knowing and yet _angry_. But it was a cool angry, the sort that helped with combat and training, not the sort that got in the way. No. Tim would never harbor something like that, something that threw him off his game. Too proud... _too Bat_. It was the sort of thing that Dick didn't have anymore. The reason he left. He let his emotions get in the way, cloud things up... chew him up and spit him out.

He could hear Alfred coming from the kitchen, the gentle clink of ice in a glass, though nothing more than that. Still, he held Tim's gaze, frozen within it. It was like time could stand still inside this bubble that they shared, as if the world stopped turning and nothing else mattered. _Brother...._ He tore his gaze away at the last possible second, watching as Alfred stepped into the room, took one hesitating step, and then continued forward as if nothing were wrong at all. _Four glasses on the tray._ Something he couldn't explain. Tim hadn't told anyone, hadn't relied on it... he wouldn't do something so brazen, it just wasn't in him to be like that.

Alfred settled the glasses on the table and then placed the large tray of bread and the covered platter surely containing this delightful smell of lasagna down behind them. And not for the first time, Dick found himself looking around the room, trying to find the way Alfred piped the smell of his food from the kitchen into the dining room without a single place between ever being touched by it. It wasn't in the ventilation; he'd checked that as a young boy. No... it wasn't in the floors either, something else he'd checked on several restless nights.

His attention drifted to the slightest changes in the air, the things he'd come to associate with Bruce's presence. Bruce wasn't quite out of his own head... not quite rid of Batman just yet. _But were they ever free of their masks?_ He didn't watch the door, but he waited... restless and pent up with desire to see that first flicker of recognition if Bruce didn't already know he was here. But he also knew he couldn't take it if he did see it and he wasn't foolish enough to give himself away like that. All the effort of leaving had to be for something.

The floorboards creaked and Dick knew Bruce was back. No more lingering in the world between the shadows. Bruce took his place at the head of the table and Alfred moved to serve. Dick let him do it, despite the urge to do it himself and give the man a night off for once. Three plates and then four... and Alfred was seated. Only then did Dick dare to look up at Bruce. 

His mentor... his father figure... the man he- _no_. Bruce sat there, quietly cutting into his lasagna, pointedly looking down at what he was doing. He had to feel Dick staring now, there was no way he couldn't with the way Dick knew it should have felt. The prickle of someone's gaze, the skittering tingle of nerves that warned you if you only paid enough attention to understand the signals. He let himself study Bruce's face. To find the new lines and the old, to find the differences as well as the things he'd probably seen far too often, in far too much detail. Memories resurfaced and he found himself only going through the motions of eating while he stared openly at Bruce, in a manner that should have been rude, should have earned him a reprimand or a stern growl to knock it off. _But it didn't._

Only when he'd finished his plate did he look away... and only then did he realize Tim had been watching him in much the same way the entire time. Their eyes met again and what he found there nearly took his breath away. The mirror of his own emotions, his own turmoil... and Dick could feel his heart breaking, shattering into a million pieces for the boy in front of him. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. And... _and he had to be imagining it._

Bruce stood from the table, his napkin drifting down beside his plate, unused. There was hesitation in his body language and an opening written in the way that he paused. Dick took it without thinking. "We need to talk." Bruce only nodded, turning away and heading down the hall.

Dick stood, his gaze falling back on Tim. Sweet _deadly_ Tim. This time there was no eye contact, no reading of one another, and it was as if a door he'd found open had been slammed shut. And he knew that stifling feeling far too well. Dick's napkin joined Bruce's on the table. "Tim?" There... there it was. That glimmer of hope and then the firmness with which it was tamped down upon. There was no way it wasn't exactly what Dick thought it was. "Stay up, will you? I'd like to... catch up." Or maybe he'd like to be everything for Tim that Bruce had _never_ been for him. Maybe... maybe a million things. He wasn't sure.

Taking a breath, he looked to Alfred, offering a genuine smile... or as genuine as it got these days. "Delicious as always." The compliment was accepted with the same graces in which it had eternally been and Dick left the room, the knowledge that Tim hadn't promised him a damn thing fresh upon his mind. 

He found Bruce in the library. He slipped in the doors and avoided looking at the far end of the room. The end of the room that had meant the end of his ability to deal with being here, _trapped_ within the walls of Wayne Manor. He took the chair opposite the only man who'd ever owned his- _no_. Their eyes met for a burning, singular second, and then parted company to find the objects within the room that they'd seen a thousand times before. _Ignore it and it will go away._ But it hadn't... wouldn't... refused to. Not for Dick and evidently not for Bruce. 

"You taught him a lot of things."

Dick bit back the immediate desire to wince. Yes... he had, hadn't he? More than he'd intended... more than he'd _wanted_ to. That look in Tim's eyes had told him that much from the second he'd figured out what it was he was seeing reflected there. When those eyes had borne the mirror image of his own turmoil. "Wasn't intentional."

"It wouldn't have been." Bruce's voice sounded resigned, perhaps... exhausted.

They lapsed into uneasy silence then. Where with Tim things just seemed to be whatever they were and remain that way, with Bruce it was always on the edge of discomfort. Not for the first time, Dick wondered if a part of it wasn't Bruce himself, his own inner chaos that projected outward.

Dick took up watching the same place in the room he'd watched a hundred times as he'd gown up here. The same globe, never altered, meticulously cleaned and moved back to the exact same position once it had been. His eyes found everything he needed to, the points he'd come to think of as assurance points upon the map. _Find them all and ban the thoughts he shouldn't have._ Simple. But not nearly as effective as he wanted it to be.

"He lured you here." Bruce's statement was finite, no room for discussion or argument, just a fact laid out on the table in a way that Dick never really got used to. _A piece of the Bat._

Dick let his eyes meet Bruce's for a moment, burning with everything he felt for once. No masks, no denial. He didn't have to live here with his actions anymore. "He knows." Another statement, this one equally as strong, the way he delivered it learned from the man in front of him. Bruce already knew too many of Tim's secrets... already knew too many of Dick's. But he wouldn't free the words from his lips anymore than he would have thrown any of his fellow Robins in front of a literal train.

Bruce kept his gaze for longer than Dick would have thought he'd allow. For an instant, he could have sworn he saw something there, something tiny and possible... and then it was gone. Blown away with the softest hint of his very next breath. _Deniable._ His own mind playing tricks on him.... perhaps. "You need to stop following us if you're not going to help. It's distracting to him and you'll get him killed."

Anger welled up, hot, fast... boiling over into rage in a split second. _Because..._ because he knew. It was true. There was nothing he could do except accept it and move on. Pursing his lips, he found the spot on the carpet. He thought - at times - that Alfred left it there for him to contemplate it when he was angry. That, perhaps, the butler knew him better than he knew himself. It was just the smallest spot, just under the edge of Bruce's chair, a little dark brown stain on the deep rich chocolate of the carpet. A shade darker... just like his anger. 

_This_... this was why he left. Bruce pulled out the stoppers on his emotions, filled him with everything he longed for and it only came out as anger now. Once upon a time, in a world where he'd held onto _hope_ , it hadn't been like this. His affection, his- _no_... had helped him become better, stronger, more like a bat than a bird. But now, like this... he was weak. Open, barren... _a disgrace_.

Dick stood then, taking two steps forward and pausing. He... he _could_. It would be so easy, so amazingly easy. Bruce knew him intimately, but he didn't know the depths of it. The secrets, the _lies_ , the parts he wouldn't let himself think of lest he give it all away. Bruce couldn't know what he didn't even allow himself to _deal_ with. He thought he wanted him, thought he had an infatuation. He couldn't know he- _no_ -

Two more steps and he leaned over Bruce's chair, one hand on each armrest, fully aware of how much restraint it took for Bruce to remain there, unmoving, his gaze unwavering on his own favorite spot. A patch on the arm of the chair, slightly more worked by fingers... Dick's own fingers. _Did he know?_ Maybe so. 

Dick lifted one hand and brought his fingertips in contact with Bruce's jaw... stroking, feeling the stubble under the pads of his fingers. Down his neck to the quick flight of his pulse, pressing, _counting_. Dick's breath hitched and he gave in. _Once... just once._ His hand found Bruce's chin and in one smooth motion, tilted Bruce's head up and leaned in, pressing his lips firm over his mentor's own. 

He could feel the way Bruce tensed beneath his touch, the way the leather creaked as he tightened his hold with the one hand that lay upon the armrest. For that one instant, Dick allowed himself every fantasy in the world. _Bruce returned his affections. Bruce wanted him as he wanted Bruce... He was only holding back for the sake of the way that it'd look._

Three... five... and ten. Dick pulled away. He slicked his fingertips over Bruce's lips, wiping away his own saliva. Their eyes met and he found Bruce's gaze more closed off than he ever had before. And somehow... it didn't hurt anymore than anything else ever had. _Expected_. Stepping back, Dick regarded Bruce, his own emotional turmoil calming down for his own actions, his breathing easier than it had been in a hell of a long time. 

Straightening the hem of his shirt, he eased back into a stance he knew was disarming. _Practiced._ And when he opened his mouth, words poured out that surprised even him. "I love you... I suspect I always will. I have for a long time, longer than you'd want to know." 

He gave it a second, letting it sink in to both Bruce and himself that he'd said it and then shook his head, gazing toward the window on the far side of the room, the curtains parted just enough to show his car, still safely in the drive. "I left because I couldn't deal with how you looked at me anymore. I couldn't take the disappointment when I violated a rule... _your_ rule, Bruce. Because, _sometimes_ it's pointless to keep running back to the same fight, again and again. And sometimes... you have to know when to quit." The last words were spoken with a quiet finality, a certain understanding within them. 

He turned away then, steps taking him to the door, his hand upon the frame as he turned back to see how Bruce had half crumbled in upon himself. It wasn't on the outside, but he could sense it as if he'd found the man rocking back and forth in his chair, tears streaking down his face. _So many years..._ He shivered and then turned back to face the hall. "So I quit, Bruce. I quit _you_... to save us both."

The final pieces of his own restraints left him, shedding from him as if they were ropes that had been binding his very movements. _Acceptance._ His eyes found the board by the door, the one where the nail had gone in slightly crooked. The one he always found when he delivered something that needed to be said... something that hurt. There had been tears here as a boy... and now, as a man - no, as a piece of the darkness - there was only quiet acceptance.

One step and then two... and his feet carried him away, quiet as night down the hall. But he knew Bruce would never follow him, would never say a word about what they'd just talked about. Their own little secret, but a burden he no longer that had to hold on his own. _Freedom._ Every breath was like new life, new vitality, clean air for a long-polluted heart.

Stopping in front of Tim's door, he placed a hand upon the wood, his head bowing and he allowed himself to get a grasp of the situation with Tim. If it was as he thought it was, then he needed a plan, a way to deal with this. A way to deal with Tim that wasn't how Bruce dealt with him. _Learn from the mistakes of others._ Advice Bruce probably needed to heed rather than simply give.

His fingers curled into a fist and he knocked lightly, listening as the bed protested weight leaving it and then the quiet tread of footsteps across the hardwood of the floor. A light clicked on and the door opened. He hadn't thought he'd spent that long with Bruce, but a quick glance at the clock behind Tim revealed he'd sat in silence far longer than he wanted to recall. Long enough... to have given Tim little hope that he'd come.

Even sleep-fogged, Tim was alert enough to have his carefully crafted mask in place in front of his eyes. The one he'd laid down tonight, in the spaces between, in the moments he'd taken to find the truth. Dick stepped into the room without invitation, taking the door from Tim's grasp and pushing it closed. And then he did something Bruce had only done twice in all of Dick's life, something he'd yearned for a hundred times... something that probably had a hell of a lot to do with the array of fucked up reasons he felt the way he did about Bruce - and he reached for Tim. Pulling him into his arms, he slid one hand to the back of his head, pressing his cheek against the softness of his own shirt, the other arm holding him tight as he pressed his lips against Tim's hair. 

The way Tim held onto him in return told everything he wasn't sure he'd ever get him to say. A tightness that spoke of desperation. The slight tremble of his body that spoke of fear. _Fear of what?_ No... no he'd not be going away, that was the fear, wasn't it? That one day he'd leave for good. "I'm right here..."

Tim's face pushed against his shoulder, his breath faster than it should have been. The careful tension in Tim's body... the deliberate way he held himself pressed against in some ways and away in others. It was everything.... _everything_ Dick needed to know. "Show me. Whatever it is you need me to do." And he could feel it, the instant rigidity, the way Tim's breath caught and his jaw clenched. _Already so many barriers._ He moved then, reaching to tilt Tim's head up, to study his face so carefully. _Pain... anger..._ and there it was, _desire_. He didn't consider it any further, just reacted the way he'd have wanted Bruce to react at this age. The way that had eaten him up inside when Bruce _hadn't_.

Their lips met, tender and uncertain at first and then steadily growing into something more. Tim's hands clutched at the fabric of Dick's shirt, his hand fisted tight in the material as they both gave in. Dick could feel the walls crumbling away, the barriers breaking down in the way Tim responded to him. His fingers stroked Tim's cheek, ghosting down his neck in much the same way he'd done to Bruce only minutes before. The pulse he found fluttered madly under the pads of his fingers, flightier and higher... _afraid_. And that was an emotion he could deal with far easier than anger. 

It took a few tries to actually part their kiss, Tim forcing the issue, desperate and obviously scared to let it stop. _Afraid_ he'd never get more. Dick let his lips press against his jaw, slowly easing down to his neck, his tongue wetting the flesh of his Adam's apple, gentle and purposeful. His hand fisted in Tim's hair, holding him still as he explored his neck and then across his collarbone. A gentle scrape of his teeth and he relented, letting Tim go, watching the way he instantly came back to cling to him. _And he knew that feeling, too._ Feeling so desperate and alone, so afraid of the solitude that came with this life... the solitude that Bruce forced upon them all. 

Dick could feel the shiver that worked its way up Tim's spine, could feel he way he slowly gave in, allowing his body to meet with Dick's own. Reaching down, he slid his hands along Tim's hips and then to his thighs, carefully grasping and then lifting, holding him close as he moved them to Tim's bed.

He was careful as he settled him on the covers, following him, kicking off his shoes in a movement that didn't pause his momentum. They eased back onto the bed, Dick pressing between Tim's legs, pushing him onto his back, and sliding down over his body. The contact was welcome in many ways, the press of another person so tight against him. Pressing his cheek to Tim's, he closed his eyes and breathed. _Control._

Tim's hands were tentative on his sides and he could feel the translation of hesitation in them. The uncertainty, still, if he was allowed to do this or not and Dick knew... _knew_ he had to give him the opportunity to say everything Dick had ever kept lodged up inside. One more time... one more opening to let him know it was okay to talk to him. "Tell me everything, Tim." His name because he knew Tim needed to know that he wasn't imagining Bruce. 

The careful hitch of breath, the slow curl of fingers against his sides... all of it told Dick a story he was all too familiar with. He dipped his head, running his cheek over the pale expanse of flesh that was Tim's neck. _Brother._ Unbidden... unallowed... but maybe more of the truth than he wanted it to be. Sorting the thought aside, he dipped his tongue out, tasting Tim's skin, the gentle salt of it... the little charge in the taste that was unique to each person. _Tim._ That was better, less... prohibitive. 

"Just... tonight. Even if you leave tomorrow." Tim's voice came out far quieter than Dick had expected. _Not like mine._ It gave him pause, the chance to examine what was happening and realize while it was so like his own situation, it _wasn't_. Tim was his own person, molded by his own life, not by Dick's choices. He laid his head against Tim's shoulder. 

"I have to..." _I can't stay here with him._ Unspoken. He rubbed his hand over Tim's side, sliding it up under his shirt and stroking the smooth skin beneath. "But... you could come... to be with me at times, too." The offer was out of his mouth before he could properly register what he was offering. But once it was, he could find no regret in it. Maybe... _probably_ , he needed Tim as much as Tim needed him.

They were quiet for a long time, Tim silent and still beneath him in a way that Dick knew meant he was thinking everything through. Let Tim get the pieces together, make his decision, and then they'd see where it led them.

"Weekdays... with you. Weekends here. I'll be out of your hair a lot with school and... and you can have a life." _That doesn't revolve around me._ Words unspoken that Dick could _feel_ within the ones that were. 

"Will you patrol with me?" Dick wasn't sure why it mattered so much... but it did. A gentle nod was his reply and Dick felt himself smile against Tim's neck as he took a deep breath, drawing in Tim's scent deep within him. _I could get used to this._ "I'll... We'll tell Bruce in the morning."

"He won't like it."

"He doesn't have much of a choice." Dick moved then, urgency flooding his veins in a way he didn't even think to question. _Possessive._ He spread Tim's thighs even more, kneeling between his legs, his hands finding Tim's wrists, holding them onto the bed as he stared down at him. _This_... this was everything he had been wanting. His head dipped and he captured Tim's lips, kissing him hard and rough. Nothing gentle left in the touch now, as he left lust to boil over within his actions. _Don't think about it._

Dick could feel Tim moving under him and he waited until slim legs slid up around his hips, ankles locking behind him and hips lifting from the bed to meet his own. Just... barely touching. _Hesitation._ His tongue speared into Tim's mouth, exploring, tasting. Nothing... nothing was going to stop him from giving Tim anything his precious Robin wanted right here tonight. His own hips tilted, pushing, arching, and then the jerk of Tim's body as they finally met so intimately. 

Tim was hard, so achingly hard. The press of his flesh was warm and insistent, his hips already rocking, unable to stop. Dick's breath hitched and then he moaned, letting the sound swallow itself up in Tim's mouth. Just like this. Just however _Tim_ needed it. Dick moved then, sinking into the contact, letting Tim have better leverage off the bed as he surged forward to meet every rock of his hips, every urgent little cant that only went halfway through. His mouth swallowed every whimper and every cry, hungry to earn more from him. _Precious Robin._

 _Delirium._ His head swam as he moved faster, lust surging higher and higher. It wasn't enough... but it would never be enough. Even as Tim began to strain under him, his muscles trembling with effort, his hips bucking hard, his cock leaking into his sleep pants he was so pent up, and so _ready_ , Dick knew he'd never let Tim go. _One obsession for another._ The thought shoved aside as he raced for the finish line, the pace between them breakneck. And just like every sparing match they'd ever had... flat-out and never resting.

Tim pulled away from the kiss, his hands grabbing Dick's shoulders, blunt nails digging in as he arched hard up off of the bed. A thin wine started in his throat, his hips bucking once... twice... ah, _there it was_. Dick watched as Tim's breath caught and his eyes rolled back. He held him as he trembled in his arms, as the fabric of his pants rapidly dampened and his orgasm washed over him the most earth-shattering of ways. 

Easing Tim back against the bed, Dick spread his legs even more, reaching down and quickly freeing himself of his own pants, tugging Tim's down to see the mess he'd left behind. His cock throbbed at the sight, his heart beating a frantic tattoo of desire. Caution thrown to the wind, he slid down, pressing himself alongside Tim's still-hard length and braced himself on the bed. Watching. He moved quick, desperate, determined to find his end just as Tim had. Tim's beautiful cock pressed alongside his own. It proved to be his undoing. The coil tightened in his stomach, the burn increasing as Tim strained under him, arching and flexing, and... _oh God_. Dick let out a harsh moan, his hips jerking as he started to cum, watching it spill onto Tim's pale skin. _Skin kissed by the night._

His hips worked until he couldn't stand the sensations anymore and only then did he settle, panting as he slowly lifted his gaze to Tim's own. _Restrained fear._ Heedless of the mess they'd created, Dick rolled over onto his back, bringing Tim with him, letting him settle against his chest, hands stroking over his back. "I'm not going anywhere." The release of tension was immediate, Tim's body easing over his own, his head coming to rest against his shoulder, his hand... over Dick's heart.

Dick turned his head, pressing a kiss to the top of Tim's head, lips lingering against his hair. "I love you... I always have." And there was a finality to the words, one he knew he'd learn the depth of later. A certain acquiescence to the situation. Tim didn't respond, didn't need to. Every word left unspoken rang clear in the silence of the night. He needed no discussion, no admission. _Not from Tim._ No... his precious Robin didn't owe him a word. He never would.


End file.
